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Born wealthy. A pious child, at age six she began nagging her parents to
join a convent. Admitted to the convent at Montepulciano at age nine. When
her spiritual director was appointed abbess at Procena, she took Agnes
with her. Agnes's reputation for holiness attracted other sisters. Abbess
at age fifteen after receiving special permission from Pope Nicholas IV.
Agnes insisted on greater austerities in the abbey; she lived off bread
and water, slept on the ground, used a stone for a pillow. In 1298 she
returned to Montepulciano to work in a new Dominican convent. Prioress of
the house the last seventeen years of her life. Pilgrim to Rome.
Many stories grew up around Agnes.
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Her birth was announced by
flying lights surrounding her family's house.
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As a child, while walking
through a field, she was attacked by a large murder of crows; she
announced that they were devils, trying to keep her away from the land;
years later, it was the site of her convent.
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She was known to levitate up to
two feet in the air while praying.
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She received Communion from an
angel, and had visions of the Virgin Mary.
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She held the infant Jesus in
one of these visions; when she woke from her trance she found she was
holding the small gold crucifix the Christ child had worn.
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On the day she was chosen
abbess as a teenager, small white crosses showered softly onto her and the
congregation.
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She could feed the convent with
a handful of bread, once she'd prayed over it.
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Where she knelt to pray,
violets, lilies and roses would suddenly bloom.
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While being treated for her
terminal illness, she brought a drowned child back from the dead.
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At the site of her treatment, a
spring welled up that did not help her health, but healed many other
people.
Born: 1268 at
Gracchiano-Vecchio, Tuscany, Italy
Died: 20 April 1317 at the convent of Montepulciano of natural
causes following a lengthy illness; legend says that at the moment of her
death, all the babies in the region, no matter how young, began to speak
of Agnes, her piety, and her passing; miracles reported at her tomb; body
incorrupt; relics translated to the Dominican church at Orvieto in 1435
Beatified: 1534
Canonized: 1726 by Pope Benedict XIII
Representation
Dominican nun gazing at the Cross with a lily at her feet; Dominican nun
holding a model of Montepulciano; Dominican nun holding the Christ child;
Dominican nun with Saint Catherine of Siena; Dominican nun with the Virgin
and Child appearing to her; Dominican abbess with a lamb, lily, and book;
Dominican with the sick who were healed at her tomb
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